


"Do you want to hear something I haven't told anyone else, yet?"

by stressedoutteenager



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/M, Religion, yousef finding his way back to his faith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 14:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11580045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stressedoutteenager/pseuds/stressedoutteenager
Summary: Yousef tells Sana that he got closer to his faith when he was in Turkey.





	"Do you want to hear something I haven't told anyone else, yet?"

"Do you want to hear something I haven't told anyone else, yet?", Yousef says and breaks the comfortable silence between Sana and him.

They got gelato and have been walking around for a bit. Since he came back from his vacation in Turkey, during which the two of them kept in touch daily, they've been closer than ever. 

Sana looks at him with a smile on her face, her ice cream already melting.  
"Not even Elias?", she asks to which Yousef laughs and shakes his head. 

"You know, he's getting jealous of how much time I spend with you.", Yousef mentions and smirks at her. Sana blushes lightly; they really have been spending a lot of time together and she loves it.

Sana laughs with a nod: "He actually glared at me when I told him I'm meeting you!" It was really absurd. But also very funny. "You might need to pay more attention to him again."

Yousef laughs and Sana joins him. It's almost impossible to not laugh when Yousef is laughing.

Yousef nods and eats a little bit of his ice cream: "I'll keep that in mind."

They walk by a bench and Yousef nods into its direction. Sana immediately understands what he means and they sit down, barely any space between them. 

"Okay, sorry. I wanted to hear what you haven't told anyone else, yet. Go ahead.", Sana tries to say casually but secretly she is freaking out because he trusts her enough to share something personal with her. The tone of his voice implied that it's not just something cheesy he would sometimes blurt out.

Sana looks at Yousef but his eyes are trained on his ice cream he stirs around in the little cup. He has a small smile on his face but there's something about the way he doesn't look up at her for a while that makes Sana worried. She is not going to push him though. He never does. She won't either. 

Finally, he looks up at her. A strand of hair that's sticking out under the snapback falls into his eyes and he flicks his head lightly to get it away. Sana's eyes follow that movement and she smiles to herself. 

Yousef smiles and leans back and then turns his body completely towards Sana. His knees touching the side of her leg. Sana's eyes go towards that small touch but quickly turn to Yousef again.

"Do you remember that picture I sent you of the Hagia Sophia one day before Eid?"

Sana nods. She definitely remembers. It's not like she reread all the messages they send each other more than once. Her smile widens when she remembers what he wrote her. Yousef sees Sana's smile grow and can tell why. Her dimples start showing and his hand itches to cup her cheek but he refrains for now.

"You told me you would take me there one day.", Sana blurts out with a fond smile playing on her lips.

Yousef nods and chuckles. He observes how Sana's cheeks grow red and smiles to himself. How can someone be this pretty? 

"And I will.", he responds. He didn't just say that. He plans on really doing that one day. Sana lowers her head and looks intensely at her ice cream. Even the thought of that alone makes her insanely happy.

Yousef takes in a breath and decides to just start. He needs to talk to someone about this and he is more than sure that Sana is the right person to do that with. 

"You know,", he starts and him and Sana start grinning at the same time. Usually it's Sana who starts her sentences like that. 

"The Hagia Sophia was a church first, was turned into a mosque and later became a museum. Now there are talks about turning it back to a mosque.", Yousef continues. 

Sana turns her body facing him, too, and nods understanding. She doesn't know how this would relate to his secret. With a small interested smile she waits.

Yousef almost forgets what he wants to say because Sana looks at him with so much interest and he knows that she will listen carefully to what he has to say.

He tries to form his thoughts into words that make sense. It's hard talking about this because it's not something he does often. Yousef only ever talked to Sana about his views on religion in this measure. To other people he'll mention that he lost his faith or that he's not Muslim but with Sana... with Sana it's easy to voice doubts and discuss because she doesn't judge. She doesn't give her opinions to change his mind; she gives her opinions to share them with him. Nothing else.

"In Norway..", Yousef says and confuses Sana. He just jumped from one continent to another in his story. ".. or any other secular country, it's easy to forget about your faith.. or rather lose focus on it."

Even though Sana is not sure where he is going with that, she nods. She understands what he means and agrees.   
Yousef looks down at his almost completely melted ice cream and feels relieved to have started this conversation. Now he can’t back down and he really needed to say some of this out loud.

"But those two months I spend in Turkey... In Turkey you're reminded of religion all the time. It's a mostly Muslim country; there are mosques at every corner and in some cities public calls for prayer."

Sana listens to him and watched his facial expressions. He is very serious about this. She knows that Yousef always takes conversations like this seriously, and she loves that, but the fact that he starts this conversation without there being something between them that leads to it is interesting to her. The other times they talked about religion it was because it stood between them being together, or at least it was something Sana needed to talk about to come to a decision. And she did. She doesn't mind the hardships they might face, she accepts it because faith is deeply personal and at the end of the day Yousef shares her values and he has proven how respectful he is of her faith. Even if he doesn't see everything like she does.

Yousef looks up and into Sana's eyes. She smiles lightly at him because she can see that he is a little nervous.

"And if you're not religious at all, or not Muslim, it doesn't bother you at all. You walk by mosques and see people go to listen to an Imam or something and just don't care. But..", he stops talking for a moment and Sana can imagine where this is going. Yousef looks at her with some kind of expectation in his eyes but she doesn't know what exactly it is. She decides to just wait and let him finish his story.

Yousef takes another deep breath and looks for sign on Sana's face of how she might react. His eyes wander over all her face and sitting so close to her he can't stop thinking how beautiful she is and it's not just her outer beauty.

"Well, over those weeks with my grandparents and family in Turkey... I kind of found myself being drawn back to my faith. I found myself feeling better than I do usually when visiting those big mosques and when I heard my grandpa reading the Koran in the other room I got the feeling of wanting to join him and actually read and understand what it's saying. And we visited the small village my grandma is from and seeing how much their faith means so much to some people and make them be grateful for everything they have instead of being bitter about what's not there... I don't even know how to phrase it. But after the thing with Even I felt like if there was a God why would he let something like that happen and I feel like the confusion about what happened with one of my best friends lead me to believe something I myself don't believe completely."

It feels good to have said all that out loud. No, it feels great. These thoughts have been in his head for too long. Yousef feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest. He doesn't know why but he felt like he shouldn't be saying or even thinking that because he did turn his back to his faith once and for some time he thought there is no going back.

Sana takes in everything Yousef tells her. It's very obvious to her that telling her all this wasn't very easy for him but now that he said it he looks somewhat relieved to Sana. But she also notices his hand shaking a little and instinctively reaches out to take his hand. They've been spending so much time together lately that this doesn't feel weird. 

Yousef looks at his hand covered by Sana's now and smiles. Then, finally, he can look at her again. He didn't even notice that his hand was shaking at first. But it might be because he doesn't know what reaction to expect from Sana. He knows she won't judge but will she be happy that he is Muslim again or at least on his way there.

When he looks at her, she just shows him a small understanding smile. Sana wonders what she should say next. She has a few thoughts but doesn't know if those would be what he wants to hear.

Yousef keeps looking at her with an expression that shows he expects some kind of reaction so Sana finally says: "I'm really happy for you, Yousef. I'm happy that you feel good with all of that." 

Yousef knows Sana enough by now to know that that is not all she wants to say.

"Sana, whatever is going through your mind, please tell me. You never judge me and I value your opinion on this a lot so it doesn't matter if it's not what you think I want to hear."

Sana looks unsure but does as he suggests. She puts her cup with ice cream aside, it's all melted by now anyway, and sits up straight.

"I don't want to come across disrespectful.", she says first and Yousef feels like laughing. Sana and disrespectful? Doesn't match in the same sentence. He nods for her to continue.

"But like you said, here it is easy to forget about your faith because you're not faced with it ... In Turkey it's easy to focus more on it because it's all around you. I really don't want to invalidate what you feel and it's not my place either, I know. Faith is a really personal thing and I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. I'm sorry.", Sana starts off very calm and collected but as soon as she says the first sentence she feels bad about it. Especially because Yousef doesn't give an immediate reaction, he just listens to her. 

Sana looks down at her hands, one being still in Yousef's and starts pulling away a little bit but Yousef squeezes her hand lightly and says her name for her to look at him.

"Sana, it's okay.", he says and smiles at her. "Do you know why I wanted to talk to you about this? Because I knew you would give me your unfiltered opinion and you're not invalidating what I told you. What you say makes complete sense."

Sana reluctantly looks up but still feels guilty about what she said. Until Yousef continues.

"But the thing is, that feeling didn't go away after I arrived back in Oslo. For the first time in forever I felt the need to go to Friday prayers and when something bad happened I started to think there might be a reason why that happened and actually found myself praying for it do get better.", he tells her and a happy smile finds its way on Yousef's face. Sana sees this and smiles too. Not only because Yousef is smiling but also because he seems genuinely happy with this development in his life.

They look into each other's eyes while Yousef concludes: "And I totally understand what you mean. That was what I thought at first, too. But nothing changed when I came back."

When the Hagia Sophia can change beliefs, maybe Yousef can too. 

Sana breaks out into a big grin and she excitedly says: "Yousef, I'm so happy that you're happy!"

She can't hold herself back and wraps her arms around him. He seems genuinely happy and what more can she want?

Yousef hugs her close and can't wipe that big smile off his face. It feels good to have said it all out loud.

They part from the hug but stay close to each other. They keep looking into each other's eyes in silence and for that moment that's all either of them want.

"You know what?", Yousef says, "Now that I'm finding my way back to my faith there is nothing standing between us anymore."

Yousef expected Sana to be happy about this, to smile her dimple-y smile, but she doesn't. She frowns. Yousef's heart stops beating for a second.

Sana has her eyebrows furrowed and looks at Yousef as if she wants to figure something out by just observing his facial expressions.

"Yousef.", she finally says sounding very serious. "I'm not happy for me that you reconnected with your faith. Or for us. I'm happy for you."

Now she starts smiling again and Yousef's heart bursts seeing her dimple-y smile again.   
"I'm happy for you because you seem to be so happy to have reconnected with your faith. I wouldn't want you to change for my sake because that's not how it works. And I know you wouldn't want me to change for you. It doesn't matter to me if you find your way back to Islam or not. As long as you are happy. I accepted that we had our differences in beliefs and that is fine, I was and still am ready to work for this to work anyway. And you've shown me more than once that you're willing to do that, too."

Sana's heart is beating so fast that she fears that it's going to burst out of her chest. She is not used to give speeches like this; it's Yousef who usually gets emotional like this. But she needed to say that.

Yousef just grins at her, not believing how he managed to have Sana in his life like this. She is beautiful inside and out.

"Can I kiss you?", he finds himself asking without being able to stop himself.

Sana's eyes widen instantly and she looks at him surprised. Yousef closes his eyes and shakes his head. Can he do anything right?

"I didn't mean like .. I meant.. because..", he rambles on. He thinks he ruined the moment, especially after what Sana said. He points at his own cheek and says: "There."

Sana starts laughing. She loves how serious they were in one moment and how funny the next one can be. Yousef is so embarrassed about what he blurted out that he can barely look at Sana. But when his gaze meets Sana's, she looks him in the eyes and nods. 

He does a double take and raises his eyebrows in a questioning manner. Yousef doesn't want to do anything she is not okay with. But Sana smile and bites her lip and nods once more. 

Yousef didn't think this far. Actually, he didn't think at all when he asked her that. They've hugged before, held hands but neither kissed the other on the cheek yet. 

Sana hopes that Yousef can't hear how fast her heart beats and tries to play it cool. Yousef hopes Sana can't hear the zoo playing in his stomach in this very moment.

When Sana turns her head a little Yousef leans closer, slowly, for her to be able to pull away if she feels like it. But she doesn't move. 

She holds her breath and when his lips finally land on her cheek she instinctively closes her eyes to savor every second as best as she can. At the same time she can feel her face growing hotter and just hopes that Yousef doesn't notice. But he couldn't care less. 

When he leans back again, Sana turns to look at him. They both have stupidly big smiles on their faces and do nothing for the next moments but smile at each other. 

"Well, I'm really happy right now.", Yousef says.  
  
"Good, then I'm also happy."


End file.
